Ekiti Assembly drags DSS to court over detention of lawmakers

Ekiti State House of Assembly has instructed its counsel to seek redress and damages over what it calls “the undemocratic, unpatriotic, dictatorial and brutish” incarceration of one of its members, Mr Afolabi Akanni, by the Department of State Services, DSS, for 18 days with neither explanation nor trial in court.
The House, which condemned “the illegal arrest, detention and dehumanisation of Honourable Akanni,” made this disclosure on Wednesday at a press conference held at its chamber in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.
Addressing newsmen yesterday, the chairman of the House Committee on Information, Youths and Sports, Chief Olugboyega Aribisogan said that the DSS did not contact any stakeholder to intimate them of the release of Akanni, adding that members of the House read the news, like every other Nigerian, online on Tuesday night.
“Up till this moment, we have not been told officially by the DSS whether or not Honourable Akanni was formally released from incarceration after spending 18 days without access to his doctors, lawyers and family members.
“However, preliminary information available to us suggests that Honourable Akanni may have been brought to the hospital by men of the DSS and abandoned there because they could no longer hold him in captivity because of his deteriorating health condition.
“Nigerians should be reminded that it took the rumour of Honourable Akanni’s death for the DSS to admit officially that it was holding him after spending 15 days in detention without access to anyone. As we speak, Honourable Akanni is in very critical condition and he has not been able to speak with anyone of us.
“We, therefore, demand an official explanation from the DSS as to why Honourable Akanni was abducted and held incommunicado for 18 days, only for us to be told that he was admitted in a private hospital in Abuja.
“Furthermore, we demand an explanation from the DSS whether in a democracy, it is part of its mandate to disobey court orders and dump Nigerians in detention for 18 days over unfounded allegations.
“Most importantly, we condemn strongly the DSS’ illegal arrest, detention and dehumanisation of Honourable Akanni and we demand an unreserved apology forthwith.
“We have also directed our counsel to seek redress and damages in court, because, to us, this act of impunity by the DSS under President Muhammadu Buhari is undemocratic, unpatriotic, dictatorial and brutish,” Aribisogan said.
Speaker of the House, Honourable Kola Oluwawole during a question and answer session with journalists noted that it was wrong for anyone to have accused the state governor of lying when he raised the alarm that Honourable Akanni had died in DSS detention last week.